


funny you should ask

by krystaljung



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, NB Pidge, Nonbinary Pidge | Katie Holt, aromantic shiro, lance has an oral fixation, trans allura
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 06:47:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8046361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krystaljung/pseuds/krystaljung
Summary: — Becoming the breakout stars in amateur university level football meant brand deals. Lance, obviously, was ecstatic.
“Do you know how many packs I used last night?” He said, elbowing Hunk in the gut. “My face is shining like a star, baby.”
“I’m not sure they’ll be focusing on your face in a photoshoot centered on shin guards.”





	funny you should ask

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [The_Game_Season_2016](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/The_Game_Season_2016) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball on a rectangular field with a goal at each end. The object of the game is to score by getting the ball into the opposing goal.

⚪

Becoming the breakout stars in amateur university level football meant brand deals. Lance, obviously, was ecstatic.

“Do you know how many packs I used last night?” He said, elbowing Hunk in the gut. “My face is shining like a  _ star  _ , baby.”

“I’m not sure they’ll be focusing on your face in a photo shoot centered on shin guards.” Hunk frowned at him, pointedly kneeling down to strap and re-strap them. Lance scrunched his face up down at his kneeling teammate before surveying the room. It was a kind of weird, basement studio that had an elevator built in down the hallway that only indie, amateur photographers used in a bid to stay "true to the art form." 

Everything was bathed in white— white sheets, white flooring, white iMacs that linked up to the camera and audio equipment (all of which were white too), except the fact there was barely any lighting apart from the shooting area gave Lance the creeps. It was like this was some strange dentist’s waiting room, and he was about to get, like, six teeth out. The only divergence in colour was the huge green screen located at the front of the room, where they’d be shooting.

Shiro was over in the middle of the room, conversing politely with the director and Coach Coran, a strained, but ultimately happy on his face with his hands behind his back. Pidge had their phone out, one leg over the other in a bid to tie their shoelaces ultimately forgotten in favour of a cute puppy  _.gif _ on their timeline. Allura was tying his hair back, dark skin a nice contrast against the light blue kit he wore. Lance outstretched his hand and looked at his own tanned skin, his eyes darting back and forth between his and Allura’s with a scrutinizing gaze.  _ I’m going to make the sun my  _ bitch  _ this summer  _ , he resolved, scrunching his face up and letting his arm flop back to his side.

That left… Keith.

Keith was being Keith, and that alone irked Lance to glare at the back of his head. Instead of doing anything worthwhile, or  _ productive  _ , he was stretching in a more spacious corner away from everyone else.

“Stretching!” Lance exclaimed all of a sudden, startling Hunk all the while glowering at an oblivious Keith. “Like we’re about to have a 5-on-1 match in the middle of the studio!”

Hunk jerked violently at the sudden outburst, before looking up to look at Lance with a pitiful look, hand gently resting across his heart. Everything was gentle about Hunk. It kind of made Lance feel bad, for like, a second.

“What’s your issue now?” He said, in a tone that held much long suffering within.

“Keith Kogane is my issue.” Lance grumbled, crossing his arms. Keith looked so damn pretentious, leaning back on his haunches before stretching each leg out as far as he could, distributing weight evenly. Lance had tried to do that once during one morning training session in order to one up Keith, and had ended up falling over in a heap in front of the whole team. (Keith had put it on Snapchat, Lance had seethed.)

The hems on his shorts rolled back on themselves as the other guy stretched; the pale expanse of skin stretched over lean muscle making Lance’s eyebrows furrow and chew the inside of his cheek with a feeling in his gut he leveled out to be irritation. He went to open his mouth, probably to launch into a tirade about how much he hated Keith’s thighs or something similar, but found no words could come out with his eyes trained on them. At that moment, the director called for everyone’s attention, saving Lance from embarrassing himself.

"First of all, we want solo pictures, so could you wait together by the shooting area please?" The photographer chimed in with a “quickly, please” and her stern expression only softened when Shiro bowed toward her and the editing team to apologise for how languid his team were being in a sign of respect.

They’d been here for four hours now; a schedule that the coach had promised would take less than two. Apparently there was a problem with the audio track and its “synergy to the recording equipment” as Shiro had explained gently, meaning they had been sitting around on their first brand deal looking like more and more like petulant kids as time stretched on. 

Starting now meant that they wouldn't be able to go out to eat together because they were already so over schedule, after the footwork training session compulsory for everyone that had ran over a bit in the morning, so it'd be back to the university dorms and hopefully getting something from their accommodation block’s vending machine.

Shiro, being the team captain of the University Football team, was up first, and despite all of his confidence he looked meek with his hands rubbing at each other and a nervous smile. Shiro was a third year, someone who ultimately everyone in the university looked up to — including the team. He was so sought after as a friend, a mentor, naturally he was also sought after as a romantic life partner per the “Generic University Rules of Life.” He got about three confessions per a bi-weekly rate at Pidge’s calculation. Lance, being Shiro’s blatent #1 fan and Shiro, being Lance’s original freshman year idol meant that he made Lance jealous, wanting to be as seemingly universally loved as Shiro, even though whenever anyone showed any romantic interest all he could do was flail a weak response back in rejection. After all of this, even though they were friends by now, Lance still held him on a bit of a pedestal.

It turned out the facemasks Lance had used the night before weren’t in vain, and that Hunk, the voice of reason amongst them 99% of the time, was wrong. Shiro was tasked with full body shots as well as close-ups on his calves, which, even with what this brand deal entailed, was weird for everyone. He was definitely the face of the team though, barring Keith (no matter how much it ???’d Lance to admit), and for all aforementioned awkwardness at times he really knew how to sell it in front of a camera.

A mound of a weird mix of dirt and mud was slowly pushed into the green screen area by a nondescript assistant, and Shiro squinted down at it like it held every single secret about the universe. Lance thought it was disgusting. He said as much.

“Well, disgusting is a bit of a stretch.” Pidge responded, though they, too, looked confused. “I think it’s kinda… cool?”

“It looks like something that’s been taken directly from a muddy field.” Keith muttered in a deadpan tone, now on the other side of Pidge, narrowing his eyes at it. To be fair, it didn't smell; or up close even look that bad. Lance came to the conclusion it was something the effects and makeup staff had whipped together, and Coran confirmed it a moment later.  _ It still looks sus as hell _ , Lance grimaced.

“That’s probably the point, Keith.” Allura offered, scratching a spot on his lower arm. “You know. Realism.”

Keith blanched, and Lance watched as he scrunched his mouth to the side, in an adorable display of embarrassment.

“Okay, rest a foot on that, Shiro. Angle your foot toward us so we can see the —  yep, there you go.”

They all awkwardly stood silent and still, as people milled around them on set; fixing their kits and adding the briefest touches of makeup over blemishes before the next batch of photos like they were idols. Keith sneezes as some concealment powder tickles the inside of his nose, and the rest of them, their touch-ups done, burst out laughing. When his fix-up is finished, he wheeled around and turned his glare on them. "Hey!”

“Sorry, dude, how are we supposed to find you intimidating now?” Hunk held his face in his hands. “It was like a small puppy sneezing.”

“Oh,  _ oh _ , you’re like Simba trying to roar in the first Lion King movie,” Lance offered, a wide grin never shifting from his face. Shiro’s mouth twitched, but he quickly carried on with his shoot with a furtive glance at the camera.

Another round of laughs had Keith wheeling on Lance and opening his mouth to probably yell, but Shiro, his shoot wrapped up, beelined his way in front of the boy and placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him down. Keith quietened down, choosing to glower at Lance, who stuck his tongue out at him over Shiro’s shoulder, relishing in the chance to annoy him even more.

 

—  _ You know what they say about boy’s pulling girl’s pigtails, Lance?  _ Pidge had commented one day after Lance and Keith had gotten into a push-up battle, and Lance had ended up pushing him while he was prone in push-up mode in the air, straight into the mud.  _ Uh, I mean, this isn’t really the right metaphor to use. Boys pulling boys pigtails. _

_ I’m imaging Keith with pigtails right now and it is a  _ treat.  _ I’m tweeting about it.  _ Lance had replied with a broad grin, slipping out his phone.  _ Also, no. _

_ It means they like them. Like… like-like them.  _

Lance had faltered for a split second and Pidge’s eyes gave him the creeping feeling like he’d been caught. But at what?  _ Shut up, dude. _

 

After this, Keith was called up next and Lance waited, savoured even, for the moment Keith screwed up and he could let out that annoying kind of raucous laughter he had bottled up inside him the rare moments Keith did something embarrassing… but it never came. Lance chewed his bottom lip absently as he watched Keith work at ease.

After the expected, initial calf  and ankle shots, his rival seemed like a natural behind the camera. Every helpful pointer the directors and cameramen would offer Keith took in stride, a simple tilt of his head showed his jawline, the one that Lance envied. A side shot preview popped up on the screen facing them captured the profile that was probably crafted by the gods.

And  _ god,  _ if he wasn’t jealous of him.

Keith had the sort of balance between natural and practiced grace that Lance could never have. They were so different it physically hurt Lance to think about it. Lance was like… all guns blazing, Keith was like the turn-based RPG Lance could never comprehend. Keith was literally the Final Fantasy VII to Lance’s Call of Duty. (Which, really, the metaphor didn’t make much sense considering Keith was a right wing striker and Lance played right wing defense.)

He thinks the reason why he felt so strongly about Keith was because he was always steps behind him. On the field, in training, wherever. It kind of propelled Lance into working harder to protect the goal, and deflect stray balls to midfielders, or even to Keith, because if they ever worked well together it was definitely on the field.

Lance, deep deep down, thought he could be pretty cool when he wasn’t being a total dick.

This was one of those times, when he wasn’t talking, and directing all of his focus to the camera. One of the camera staff was muttering about how this needed to be better (and how could they improve this?), before making a full 180 degree turn to survey the rest of the room and the clipboard resting on a table nearby, like the answer to her problem would be in the coat rack, or the elevator, or— “McClain? Lance McClain? Come here, will you?”

Lance blanched, seemingly glued to the spot. Whilst he was always ready to jump in front of a camera, and whilst he didn’t want the deep moisture soda bubble sheet mask he used this morning to go to waste, he wasn’t sure he could get up there next to Keith.

He settled to stall, feigning ignorance and looking around before jabbing a thumb at his own chest. “Me?”

“You. Stand next to Keith, please.”

Lance looked everywhere but Keith, hoping to draw strength from Pidge or Hunk, but all they had to offer was shit-eating grins. He knew Shiro would pass off some faux-father like smile, so he turned to Allura as a last resort.

Allura clapped his hands together brightly, a wide smile on his face. “You’ll do great out there!”

Lance sighed, wondering when all of his team had gone over to the dark side. He trudged forward, around the side of the equipment and into the shooting area to stand next to his rival. Keith was watching him with an unreadable expression, but he didn’t pay much mind to it since this wasn’t exactly out of the norm. Keith was the epitome of that edgy, mysterious hipster that likes underdog foreign football teams and laughs at Lance when he doesn’t know the stats of a Danish player he’s never heard of before. This wasn’t new.

“You okay?”

This was, though.

Lance thought he imagined it, to be honest. It was so quiet that it made him furrow his brows and turn to look at Keith. He wasn’t looking at him, looking at the floor whilst the camera equipment was being calibrated for two people at one time, but he’d sounded so sincere it kind of threw Lance off. Keith opened his mouth, maybe to take it back, but Lance, as usual, responded in jest maybe a little too quickly.

“Okay? Man, I was  _ born  _ okay. What about you? Sure you can keep up?” Lance smirked down at him, causing Keith to raise his face and glare at him. Too busy glaring (read: staring into each other’s eyes) at each other, they missed Shiro’s defeated sigh.

“Are you kidding me?” Keith snapped back, with a bit more fire than the taller guy would have expected.

Lance’s mouth dropped open a bit, thrown off by Keith’s reaction.  _ What’s eating him?  _ Lance thought as Keith turned back to the call of the director saying they’d start filming again, steely expression.

Lance caught the eye of Hunk behind the camera, who sent him one of those a really potent, unhappy looks he was a master at, with his eyes darting to Keith. Lance could only shrug, and listen to the director.

“Okay, shoulder to shoulder in the centre please, see the ‘x’ on the floor? Stand on that.”

He was taller than Keith, even without cleats, and liked to hold it over him whenever they were doing stretches. He even opened his mouth to do it now, but Keith seemed to be in the mood where one step out of line would equal a kick the back of his knee to make him buckle to Keith’s height, so for once, he stayed mute.

The click of the camera, a new pose, it was a repeated mantra. Lance, personally, felt he was good at this sort of thing even though he was next to Keith. It wasn’t until the director said, offhandedly, “you’d look better with your arms around each other. You know, team unity and all that.”

Lance froze, staring at the director before flashing a look at Keith. Keith didn’t look as horrified as Lance felt, and it confused the hell out of him. 

“Him?” It escaped out of Lance’s mouth before he could say anything. It wasn’t that it was because he hated Keith, because in all honesty, he didn’t. It was because Keith amounted to so much more and frankly, Lance’s fragile self confidence couldn’t take it.

“Am I contagious?” Keith barked out, looking at Lance incredulously.

“No, I just don’t think — ”

“You never do.” Keith scorned, “don’t worry about it. I’m taking a break.” Keith shook his head, looking anywhere but him and shouldering past him, grabbing his dark jacket before storming out of the room like a metaphorical whirlwind.

The room was silent, before Shiro stepped forward apologise, or placate, whatever a good captain would do, but Lance only stared after him. It took five minutes before he was running after him, the calls of the staffs left behind in the room as he took the elevator up and after Keith.

⚪

The studio was some little backstreet place, affirming the fact the brand deal with essentially organised by hipsters, but that meant Lance had no idea where to go as soon as he left. If he knew Keith, he was brooding somewhere, which meant he was at one of two places: the local park the university van passed on the way here, or the local football field nearby. He took out his phone, scrolling past some texts from his sister and a girl in his MFL class asking for the coursework to glance at the time.

“9:32…” He mumbled to himself, before taking off again. He wasn’t wearing his coat, left only in his blue kit and trainers, and the evening chill was getting to him by medium of gooseflesh rising along his arms and legs. He grit his teeth, running all the way and skidding round the street bends until he reached the park.

It was empty.

Lance cursed quietly, thinking about how it took twenty minutes by foot to reach the community football field, and taking off anyway. How had he screwed this up? Maybe he anxiety had gotten the best of him. Maybe it was his personality, his actions. Maybe Keith was sick of it. Lance wouldn’t blame him.

Feeling like an asshole aside, he really did have to apologise to the guy. They didn’t get on, sure, but pissing him off to that level wasn’t really in Lance’s horoscope today.

The run was long, longer than he’d actually expected, and resulted in nothing. The field was empty too, save for a fox running down the midfield line and dipping into the trees that flanked the pitch. He was a defender— his stamina wasn’t as good as the rest of the members— so he didn’t the only thing he could justify then and there and let his knees buckle so he could rest on the ground. Where was Keith? Had his obnoxiousness managed to have driven Keith nonexistence?

“Shut up, me.” Lance mumbled to his delirious inner monologue, throwing an arm across his eyes. There was a moment where he just embraced the utter silence as the evening quickly turned to night, the breeze light against his skin, his heart beating in turn with adrenaline pumping around his system.

“What are you doing here?”

Lance grimaced, not moving his arm away. When would the Football Academy students leave them alone. “Wallowing in self pity. Listen, man—”

“Lance.”

Lance opened his eyes then, taking his arm away. Keith’s hands were in his jacket and he was leaning over Lance, toeing his flank gently.

“Keith!” He exclaimed, jolting up immediately, his arms pushing up behind him to get himself up, as close as he can while he’s on the floor. Keith looked different, for once. The jacket was kind of cropped, so it showed his smaller waist only slightly obscured by his football kit shirt. His hair is in a small bun, out of his face, different to earlier.

“Hey—”

“—Listen, I’m sorry.” Lance interrupted, gnawing at his lip before coming clean with it all; staring up at Keith. The only source of light was the streetlights nearby, casting shadows over their faces. “I didn’t mean to treat you like that earlier.”

“You’re not disgusted anymore, then?”

“Disgusted? ” Lance frowned, confusion spilling over his features. “Man, what?”

“To be, like.” Keith paused, looking away and swallowing. “Near me, or something.”

“Disgusted? By you? Dude, I’m  _ jealous  _ of you.”

There was a pause. Keith stared down at him like he had grown a second head. “Jealous.” He deadpanned, his eyes taking on an irritated gleam. “Good to know you’re taking this seriously. Whatever.”

Keith turned to leave and Lance did the only Lance-like thing he could think and pounced at the other boy’s ankles, wrapping his arms around them and resting his head against the back of his calf.

“Seriously, can you just calm down for a second? I’m pouring my heart out to you, here. Hell, I ran for you!” He panted. (He hadn’t had dinner and he’d still been doing the most non-interval activity he’d done in ages. Let him 

Keith stared down at him before shaking his head. “Alright. Shuffle up.”

Lance let out an audible sigh, sitting up with his legs splayed out, hands behind him. Keith joined him, sitting close with his knees drawn up close to his chest, and his arms around his knees.

They were silent for a moment, Keith looking at his trainers and Lance up at the sky. It was probably the first time they were ever this quiet around each other apart from when Coach Coran was giving a rousing but somewhat confusing speech pre-game. A few, silent moments passed by them until Lance looked sideways on to study Keith. “I’m serious though. I’m… like, jealous of you, man.”

“No, you’re not.” Keith bit back like a broken record too quick for Lance to compute.

“Yes! I am! Why is this so hard to believe?!” He exclaimed, lying back on the ground with a muffled slam. As far as he was concerned, kits were designed to get mud and dirt all over them, so he didn’t see the point of his body having an aversion to gravity right now.

“Because you’re Lance. You do shit like this for fun.” Keith grumbled.

“What shit?”

“Messing with me.”

“Do you really think that little of me?” Lance asked, in a low voice. Keith turned to look at him, to find Lance was back up again and in his space. Their faces were close,  _ too  _ close for comfort, and Keith turned away as the tips of his ears began to burn. He let his legs rest in a cross legged position, looking back up at the stars as he continued to speak.

“No, I just— I’m tired. Of... this. University is hard enough without having to fight with you all the time.”

Lance was quiet again, but he didn’t move, studying Keith and his obscured profile.

“It stems from the fact that you’re so good and I’m… me. Compared to you, I’m not good enough, you know?” Lance let out a bitter laugh. “It’s not like we’re even in the same position. But all the way from the goal box you’re so many leagues ahead of me. You’re so talented, and I want that, you know?”

Keith didn’t speak, so Lance continued. “And I wanted to like, be ‘friends’,” he said in exaggerated quote marks, “or whatever, but you didn’t give me the time of day. So I tried to impress you, but I could never…  _ do  _ that being a defender, or I would just embarrass myself in training. So it just turned into jealousy. It’s not fair to take it out on you, so, sorry, I guess.” He said in an awkward voice, scratching the back of his head and glancing away.

Keith had turned to look at him halfway through his speech, mouth parting in surprise as he went on. “You really think that?” He murmured, angling towards him. Lance looked back, gaze filled with embarrassment.

“Yeah.” He offered, his eyes darting around before lifting a pinky finger. “Promise.”

Keith frowned at it like it was a completely foreign concept, so Lance, sighing, reached over with his free hand to grab Keith’s. Lance’s hands seemed to completely cover Keith’s: they were bigger, his fingers were longer, and the contrast of their skin looked even nicer in the dusk. 

Lance closed Keith’s hand into a fist, all the while holding his hand gently, mumbling a quiet “keep it still” when he let go. Keith let his hand hover, his thumb facing towards him. Lance reached out again, pulling his own pinky out to rest half-mast towards him, before locking their fingers together.

If Keith’s face wasn’t heating up, albeit slowly, before, it definitely was now, and Lance caught on to it quick.

“Dude, are you blushing?” Lance said, in a mixture of surprise and humour, leaning forward, and making Keith lean back, their fingers still locked together.

Keith averted his eyes, offering a quiet “shut up” and making Lance smile in a really endeared way that made him want to flick him in the forehead. They stayed there for a bit, hands sliding apart naturally, but the pressure in Lance’s chest he never knew was there lifted, slowly but surely. 

 

⚪


End file.
